


With This Ring

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:22:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5819410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter takes his time choosing Harriet's engagement ring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With This Ring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ashfae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashfae/gifts).



> Fandom-stocking gift for Ashfae. Apologies if the quote from Have His Carcase is slightly off - I haven't got my books to hand.

_Claret_ , Peter Wimsey remembered, examining a row of engagement rings laid out for him, most in a size to fit Harriet's fourth finger, or close to. _I'm not particular about the year._

 

The jeweller, a man by the name of Pakenham who had been his lordship's chief source of beautiful trinkets and more serious pieces since Wimsey had bought a rather trite diamond ring for his first fiancée, watched patiently. Wimsey always brought a fierce concentration and a certain rigorousness to the acquisition of jewels for his family: the aquamarine set for Lady Mary's twenty-first birthday and the diamond brooch for the Dowager Duchess's sixtieth had earned this intense regard. It would have been rude of Pakenham to observe that presents for his lordship's less permanent connections, no matter how valuable, had always been selected in a flash, but he certainly noticed the care Lord Peter was taking this time. Quite apart from anything else, Lord Peter had taken at least two hours of Mr Pakenham's own time. Mr Pakenham was far too polite,  and knew Wimsey far too well, to refer to the fact, but each man knew the other was well aware of it.

 

Two wedding bands lay to one side, on a small, velvet-lined tray. These had been selected with relative ease. It was the engagement ring that was trying Peter's ingenuity, and he had just made a breakthrough.

 

"Not the emeralds," he said decisively. "They would suit her colouring, but - no."

 

Mr Pakenham removed several handsome rings from the selection, leaving behind only three, and - Peter suspected - permitted himself to hope that a choice would be made in the near future.

 

Peter's own words about the colour of Harriet's dress in Wilvercombe revolved around his head again, and he lifted two of the remaining rings to the light, eyeing them severely through his monocle, before making a conscious effort to relax and try to imagine them on Harriet's left hand,  part of her life that (he sincerely hoped) would remain with her for the rest of her life. Glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, seen in a portrait or one of Bunter's photographs, glittering on Harriet's fingers as she tapped them impatiently against a desk, eyes faraway as she chased a plot point, or a line of dialogue...

 

When he thought of it like that the decision was an obvious one. He laid the loser down with the other, and cupped his final choice in the palm of his hand. "This one, I think," he said.

 

Mr Pakenham nodded. "A fine choice," he observed. "If I may say so. It will need to be adjusted a trifle for Miss Vane's hand, but that will not pose any difficulty."

 

"Good," Lord Peter said decisively, and waited while Mr Pakenham put away the remainder of his stock and set the final choice aside for adjustment, making the polite small talk about their respective lives and his future wife that he felt he owed Pakenham, whose skills he valued highly. In any case, such conversation didn't require much thought.

 

 _What colour?_ he was remembering - _The frock, what colour?_ and his own response, _Wine-coloured... Claret. I'm not particular about the year_. The same startling electric thrill had run through him when he had offered that opinion as when he'd held that ring in the palm of his hand, because Harriet had asked him what he thought: because she had trusted him enough to ask that he choose for her.


End file.
